Their music has elements of folk melody, rock energy, and 20th century classical music. Their early albums offered many aggressive, ferociously emotional songs, but since their fourth album, Ocean Songs, Dirty Three have gradually shifted their focus towards a slower, arguably more melancholic, style of playing.

History

Ellis' musical history prior to the Dirty Three is cloudy; he worked as a schoolteacher in regional Victoria. Turner and White played in a number of Melbourne bands in the 1980s. Turner was a member of The Moodists for a few months prior to, and including the length of, their first European sojourn (1983-5), and was also a member of the Sick Things (as Mick Sick), Fungus Brains and Venom P. Stinger. White was also in Venom P. Stinger and played on some tracks recorded by Fungus Brains. He has also been a member of People With Chairs Up Their Noses, Feral Dinosaurs (this group also featured Conway Savage, later a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) and the Blackeyed Susans. He has also played on records by Hunters and Collectors and Tex, Don and Charlie.

Dirty Three have released albums on Touch & Go Records and have toured with Sonic Youth, Pavement, Throwing Muses, Cat Power, PJ Harvey, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Devendra Banhart and Shannon Wright to name just a few.

Since 1996, Ellis has been a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Ellis and Turner have both released solo albums. In addition, Turner and White have released several EPs as The Tren Brothers, and appear as backing musicians on albums by Cat Power, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and PJ Harvey (White drums). Turner is also an internationally exhibited painter with his own work gracing the covers of all of their major albums except Sad & Dangerous. He also runs the band's own record label Anchor & Hope. In 1999, Dirty Three joined forces with Low to record an In The Fishtank session for Konkurrent records; the result has been called "some of the best material either unit has produced."[1]

In late 2005, the band released their seventh major album, Cinder, which, though following in the spirit of Ocean Songs, diverges from all of their previous works on several points. It was the first Dirty Three album to feature vocals (those of Chan Marshall aka Cat Power and Sally Timms of The Mekons), though only on two of nineteen songs. The songs are also generally much shorter and more concise than their early work, which allows for the rather large number of tracks. Perhaps most notably, instead of the usual recording live technique, they opted, for the first time in their career, to record in the studio individually.

In May 2007 the band curated a weekend of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival, choosing bands they admired and loved to play, and performing twice themselves. 2007 also saw the release of a live concert on DVD, shot in Tokyo in HD by Taiyo Films with a multi-track sound record. Film director Darcy Maine also has completed a feature length documentary on the bands history to be released worldwide. Outtakes and clips from this forthcoming release can be seen at[http://www.myspace.com/dirtythreedoco

Discography

Albums

* Sad & Dangerous (April 25, 1995)
* Dirty Three (1995)
* Horse Stories (September 10, 1996)
* Ocean Songs (March 31, 1998)
* Whatever You Love, You Are (March 7, 2000)
* She Has No Strings Apollo (February 18, 2003)
* Cinder (October 11, 2005)

Singles and EPs

* Obvious is Obvious (split with Low) (1997)
* Sharks (1998)
* A Strange Holiday (7" split with Scenic) (1998)
* Ufkuko (1998)
* In the Fishtank (with Low) (2001)
* Great Waves (2005)
* Doris/I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (7" split with Josh T. Pearson) (2006)

Compilations and soundtracks

* Absolutely Live 1995 (compilation) (1995)
* Why Should the French Have All the Fun? (compilation) (1996)
* Songs in the Key of X (compilation) (1996)
* Recovery: Ready for Transmission (compilation) (1999)
* Homebake 3 (1999)
* Praise (1999)
* Lowlands (2000)

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